The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle Chapter 9 Summary

  • The ship continues to drift.
  • One afternoon, Charlotte is on the deck reading to Ewing, a young Scottish sailor.
  • Ewing is patching an old canvas jacket when he accidentally snaps his needle. Charlotte offers to get him a new one from his box in the forecastle (the crew's quarters).
  • At the forecastle door, Charlotte hears men discussing putting down "their marks" (9.20). She hears herself referred to as "always spying" (9.23).
  • Knocking and entering the cabin, Charlotte sees three men in hammocks. Fisk, who opens the door, directs her to Ewing's chest. Going through it, she sees a pistol.
  • Charlotte grabs a needle from the chest and starts to exit, but as she does, she stumbles over a chest and knocks a sheet of paper to the floor. There's a round-robin on it. Uh oh.
  • Charlotte acts like nothing is wrong and bolts out of there, though she immediately runs into Mr. Keetch who, she thinks, pays her no mind.
  • Charlotte delivers the needle to Ewing and returns to her cabin.
  • Charlotte does some quick arithmetic and realizes she's seen one too many people. There should only be four people off the watch: Ewing, Morgan, Foley, and Fisk. Ewing was sewing on deck, and Fisk opened the door the forecastle. But there were three other men asleep in the hammocks. Two of them were Morgan and Foley. Who was the third man? The stowaway?
  • Charlotte decides to tell Captain Jaggery of what she has seen. She runs into Morgan on the deck and the two have a stare off. She then sees Foley spying on her.
  • Charlotte is unnerved but, after some hesitating, goes directly to the captain's quarters.
  • Charlotte relates to Jaggery, and to the first mate Mr. Hollybrass, what she has seen.
  • The captain tells Mr. Hollybrass to summon the crew to the deck. Why? So he can crush the mutiny, of course.